Editor Stephen Pollard said: "Only those without the confidence to win an argument resort to such tactics. And it was a pretty self-defeating attempt to silence us. Our site was down for a few hours, but as a result we will get more readers than ever before."

The Jewish Chronicle, which is based in London, is the world's longest-running Jewish newspaper.

Defacers using the same Palestinian Mujaheeds nickname also hacked an Israeli weather website, www.israelweather.co.il, posting their name on parts of the site that would normally display weather satellite images.

More recently Twitter and Chinese search engine Baidu were the victims of a DNS hijacking by the "Iranian Cyber Army". Surfers visiting the sites were forwarded to a third-party site protesting against Western cyberactivism following last year's disputed Iranian elections.